


Richie and Eddie Outrun the Devil (in Richie’s Rental Car)

by skeilig



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: ...eventually, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Eddie Kaspbrak Lives, Fix-It, Getting Together, Just bad luck all around, M/M, Near Death Experiences, POV Alternating, Road Trips, Sharing a Bed, so does Richie obviously
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-18
Updated: 2019-10-11
Packaged: 2020-10-21 04:09:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20687276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skeilig/pseuds/skeilig
Summary: “If It’s trying to kill us, I don’t want to get on an airplane.”“Air travel is statistically safer than—”“Eds, please. I don’t think I can handle a cross-country flight by myself right now. There isn’t enough Ambien in the world.”Eddie snorts. “What are you gonna do then?”“Drive, I guess.”“You’re gonna…drive… to L.A.?”+ alternate title: An Evil Clown Can’t Kill You If You Drive Fast Enough





	1. Bite

“Did you say you’ve seen us all _die_?” 

Beverly looks sick as she turns away and walks from the bar to the living room. Richie and Ben follow, continuing the interrogation: “Bev, you can’t just drop something like that and walk away.” 

As she sinks down into one of the ornate chairs by the fireplace, Eddie appears at the bottom of the stairs, two suitcases in tow. “I just have to grab my— Wait, what’s going on?”

Once Eddie is filled in, the four of them fall silent for a moment. 

Richie looks down at his hands, folded in his lap, and clears his throat. “This doesn’t change anything; we need to leave Derry. It can’t kill us if we aren’t here, right?”

“It got Stanley,” Ben says quietly. 

“With all due respect, Stan offed himself,” Richie says. “Just don’t do that. Problem solved.”

“You know it’s not that simple,” Ben argues.

“Do I know that?” Richie looks back at Beverly, who’s chewing on her thumbnail and avoiding his eye. “How old were we in these ‘visions’? Could you tell where we were? How do we know it’s not gonna happen no matter what? And just because it happened to Stan, doesn’t mean it will happen to all of us.” 

“Richie’s right,” Eddie says. “For all we know, this is It messing with our heads, making us think that we _have_ to stay.” 

“But how could It know—?” Bev starts.

Richie cuts her off, a little too loudly, “I don’t know! _You_ don’t know. None of us know. I’m not staying here based on a- a hunch.” He stands up. “Eddie and I are going to the airport, and if anyone wants a ride, you’re— Wait, never mind, my rental car only has two seats. Well. Eddie and I are leaving. I hope you two come to your senses. It’s probably too late for Mike and Bill; don’t let them talk you into staying. Have a good life.” 

“Richie—” Beverly and Ben call after him in near-unison. 

Eddie hesitates for a moment, before following. “I’m sorry, Bev, Ben… I just- I… Bye.” 

He struggles through the door of the inn with his two suitcases and toiletry bag, while Richie, single duffel bag slung over his shoulder, holds the door for him. They throw their bags in the back of Richie’s Mustang—Eddie comments on Richie’s extravagant rental car, Richie comments on Eddie’s inordinate amount of luggage, and they both tell each other to shut up—then they get in the car and drive off.

“Look up directions to the airport, will you?” 

Eddie does as he’s told. “Says twenty-five minutes.” 

A few minutes of quiet follow, as Eddie lets the GPS guide them onto the highway and Richie fiddles with the radio. It’s some oldies stations, and Richie makes a small discontented noise but turns up the volume anyway. The road is quiet outside of town this time of night, a narrow two-lane highway that seems to only exist within the scope of the headlights. Eddie stares out the window at the dark shadows of trees passing by. 

Breaking the silence, Richie says, “I can’t believe this. First, Mike calls us here, without really preparing us, and expects us to all be chill with dying. Then… Stanley, I still haven’t really processed that, to be honest. Then Bev tries to, like, scare us into staying. And it’s all so weird, like— we all just forget our entire lives? How do we know those memories are even real in the first place?”

Before Eddie can try to respond, Richie’s phone rings in his pocket. He struggles to get it out and glances down at it. 

“Bill. Of course.” Rolling his eyes, he pockets the phone again. “Not falling for it."

When Richie’s eyes leave the road for a second, the car sitting at the intersection in front of them suddenly pulls out— and they’re still flying down the road, with no hope of stopping in time. 

Eddie yells, not forming any coherent words other than, “Hey!” and Richie looks back up in time to say, “Oh, shit,” and slam the breaks. 

Eddie grips the armrests as the seatbelt locks against his shoulder and it’s clear that they’re still on a collision course, but Richie swerves a bit, just in time. Tires squeal, and they end up spinning around, half in the gravel shoulder when they finally come to a stop. 

The car that caused all this seems to be gone entirely, leaving the two of them alone again on the dark road, breathing heavily, Richie gripping the steering wheel and Eddie the armrests. 

“Shit.” Eddie fumbles into his coat pocket for his inhaler, but decides he doesn’t need it. Sometimes just feeling it in his hand is enough. “Maybe Bev was right.”

Richie finally releases his death grip on the steering wheel. “You don’t really think this was It, do you? People get in car accidents all the time.”

“We stopped it,” Eddie whispers. “Maybe if we’re careful…”

Richie puts the car into reverse and rights them, continues crawling down the shoulder, on the way to the airport. “It only has influence over Derry, right? When we left… we were fine. We need to get as far away as possible.”

“I think you’re right.” Eddie pulls out his phone, the GPS still providing directions. “Two more miles then you’re gonna turn left.” 

Richie continues along at the slow pace, hazard lights on, clearly shaken. “If It’s trying to kill us, I don’t want to get on an airplane.” 

“Air travel is statistically safer than—” 

“Eds, please. I don’t think I can handle a cross-country flight by myself right now. There isn’t enough Ambien in the world.” 

Eddie snorts. “What are you gonna do then?” 

“Drive, I guess.” 

“You’re gonna… _drive_… to L.A.?” 

Richie shrugs. “I’ve always wanted to do a cross-country road-trip. No time like the present, huh? I can still drop you at the airport if you want, otherwise… I can drop you off on the way.”

+

For the next two hours, they both ignore a few calls and a myriad texts from Bill and Mike and Bev and Ben. After midnight, it peters out. Maybe they’ve given up, or gone to bed, or maybe… Eddie shakes that thought from his head before it can form. No use thinking like that. 

It’s roughly a seven hour drive to New York, but the interstate is empty this time of night so it’s smooth sailing. Both of them are a little too wired to sleep anyway. They listen to the radio for a while, until they’re out of range of anything worth listening to, and opt for silence instead. They stop for gas and snacks somewhere in New Hampshire. Eddie considers texting the rest of the losers, asking them if they’re okay, but decides not to. They’ll be calling again in the morning, he’s sure of it.

Four hours into the journey, Eddie starts to doze off, lulled to sleep by the hum of the road. His eyes have barely slipped shut when he’s startled awake again— a horn blares and the car swerves. Eddie bolts upright again and sees a semi truck pass them in the opposite direction. 

Richie swears under his breath and sits up straighter in his seat. 

“Are you falling asleep? We have to stop driving,” Eddie says firmly. “That probably wasn’t even It. Driving while tired is just as dangerous as driving drunk.” 

He can hear the smirk in Richie’s voice when he says, “Good thing I’m both then, right?” 

Eddie scoffs. “You are not. Are you?” 

“Well, what do you wanna do, just pull over and sleep in the car on the side of the road? Get murdered by some hooked-handed vagrant?” 

Eddie considers it. “Maybe we can take turns sleeping.” 

“Look, we’ll lock the door, what’s the worst that can happen?” 

“You’re the one who brought up the hook-hand, Rich.” 

Without further discussion, Richie takes the next exit and parks on the shoulder of the off-ramp. He kills the engine and turns off the headlights. 

It takes their eyes a few moments to adjust, but even then, it’s pitch black. The darkness feels somehow heavy, oppressive. “Where are we?” 

“Just north of Providence.” 

A few seconds later, Eddie can make out the dark silhouettes of trees, the thick forest on all sides. “I mean,” Eddie begins in a quiet voice, “we’re far enough, right?” 

“Yeah,” Richie says. He has no business sounding so confident. He unbuckles his seatbelt and slides down in his seat, crossing his arms across his chest. After only a couple seconds, he sits up again, hand on the car door, and says, “I have to piss.” When he opens the door, the lights click on overhead, almost blinding. 

Eddie blinks blearily as he undoes his own seatbelt and fumbles with the door handle. 

“What, are you coming with?” 

“No, I just don’t want to get separated… dick…” Eddie’s annoyance doesn’t outweigh his fear, however, and he manages to get the door unlocked.

“I’m not gonna wander off into the woods,” Richie says. “It’s so fucking dark, it’s not like I need to find privacy. I’m gonna stand right here, next to the car, and piss. So, don’t worry your pretty little head, Eddie. You can follow the sound of my stream if you get scared.”

Now Eddie’s irritation takes front and center. “That’s so fucking gross.” But he gets out of the car anyway. It feels better than sitting inside, all alone. Then he realizes he kind of has to pee, too, so he does, leaning against the passenger door. 

Back in the car, they lock the doors again, and get settled in. Richie takes off his coat and lays it over his chest like a blanket. Eddie slips off his shoes and reclines the seat as far as it goes. He wants to brush his teeth, doesn’t like the feeling of going to sleep like this, but his toiletry bag is in the trunk and there’s no way he’s getting out of the car again. 

Staring up at the ceiling—presumably the ceiling, but Eddie can’t actually see anything—he says, “Maybe we should leave a note.” 

There’s a long pause, long enough for Eddie to wonder if he’s fallen asleep, before Richie says, “A note?” 

“Yeah, to ourselves. In case we wake up tomorrow and we… forget again.” 

“Um. Okay.” Richie sits up and clicks on the overhead light. He reaches across Eddie’s legs to rifle through the glove compartment until he finds a pen, then grabs a crumpled receipt from the floor between the seats. He scrawls on the back of it: _It’s trying to kill us_, and presents it to Eddie. “There.” 

Eddie rolls his eyes, but there’s something nice about Richie humoring him right now. He lays back in the seat again and tries to get comfortable. Somehow, he falls asleep. 

+

When his eyes open again, it’s still dark. Eddie curses to himself, wishing that this night could be over, and rolls onto his side. Richie is snoring slightly, a raspy sound, but it’s comforting to hear. His eyes slip shut again, but then he hears something else. 

Not snoring, and not anything coming in the general direction of Richie— instead, it’s a scratching, rustling sound that seems to emanate from below his seat. 

In a second, his blood runs cold. “Richie,” he breathes, not daring to make much more noise. His throat feels like it’s constricting and he fumbles into his pocket for his inhaler. “Richie,” he gasps again, gripped by fear, feeling like he did in the restaurant with the demonic fortune cookies, or when Mike called him barely over twenty-four hours ago. It’s dark, so fucking dark, he can’t see the interior of the car, let alone anything outside of it, and he doesn’t want to. 

Eddie reaches out to his left, toward Richie, but instead of finding the cloth of his shirt or warmth of his arm, his hand bumps into something smooth and cold. Eddie screams. 

Richie snorts awake and sits up in an instant, grappling for the overhead light. “Fuck, Eddie, what’s going on?” He looks down at Eddie in concern, and Eddie stares back at him. 

Eddie breaks eye contact for a moment to look at the leather arm rest between them, presumably what he bumped into in the dark. “I thought I— I heard…” Eddie trails off and a shiver runs down his spine as he hears the rustling again. He pulls his feet up off the floor. “Do you hear that?” 

Richie considers. “Yeah. It’s coming from outside, though, right?” Richie lights up the flashlight on his phone and points it at the floor of the car between them. Nothing. He ducks his head to peer under Eddie’s seat, then his own. Nothing. “Yeah, it’s outside.” 

“Okay.” Eddie slowly puts his feet back down. “Let’s just… drive off then.” 

“Or we could just go back to sleep?” Richie clicks off the overhead light. 

Eddie immediately reaches to turn it back on. “Oh, no. I’m not gonna be able to sleep here. This is freaking me out.” 

“It’s probably just a… squirrel, or a rabbit. Relax.” 

“Relax?” Eddie repeats, like he’s never heard of the word. “_Relax?_” 

“Yes, relax.” 

“Just— Just switch spots with me, and I’ll drive—” Eddie starts grabbing at his arm and shoulder, starts crawling over the center console. 

“Whoa, whoa.” Richie shrugs him off, and then his hand is on the door. “If I investigate what it is, will you go back to sleep?” 

“Richie, come on, man.” 

Ignoring his protests, Richie opens the door and steps out. The door closes behind him, and the car dims back to darkness, but Eddie can see Richie’s flashlight beam, aimed at the ground around the car. Eddie groans, head in his hands, for a moment, before he opens the passenger side door and gets out. 

Richie shines his light under the car and ducks to take a look. “I think I see movement?”

Eddie mutters a litany of curses as he turns on the light of his own phone and aims it in the same direction. When he sees two small eyes glaring back at him, he yells, “Fuck!” and just about jumps a foot in the air. 

“It’s a _squirrel_, Eddie. A fucking squirrel. What did I say?”

Eddie calms down enough to be irritated again. “Well, _fine_, I’m sorry for being _paranoid_, or whatever, it’s not like an evil clown is literally trying to kill us, or anything.”

Richie ignores him, and ducks down to wave his arm under the car. “Go on. Shoo. Get out of here.” Then he yanks his arm back and shouts, “Fuck! Something just— I think something _bit_ me.” 

“The squirrel?” Eddie scrambles around the back of the car to join him. Richie has dropped his phone, the light now shining up at him, and he grips his right hand in his left.

“No, it wasn’t the fucking squirrel, Eddie—”

“You said that’s what you saw—” In the shaky beam of light, Eddie catches a glimpse of a leopard-like print against the pavement, slithering away toward the ditch. “Holy _shit_!” Eddie nearly drops his phone too as he jumps back, bumping into the car. “That’s a fucking copperhead.” 

“A— _what?_” 

Eddie shoves Richie through the driver’s side door and closely follows, continuing to shove him until he’s kneeling in the passenger seat. Eddie closes the door after him, and takes deep, steadying breaths. “A copperhead, a snake. Their range doesn’t go this far north, but I’m sure—” 

“They’re… harmless, right?” 

“No. No, Richie, they’re venomous.” Eddie only pauses for a second before he starts to say, “What did I fucking tell you—”

But Richie cuts off his told-you-so rant: “Well, how do you know it was a- a copperhead? Could you even see it?” 

“I’m a risk analyst, dude.” 

“Somehow I doubt that’s the kind of risk you’re analyzing for fucking… State Farm.” 

“It was Allstate.” 

“Oh, my bad.” Richie puts his hand to his mouth, trying to soothe the wound. He winces and shakes out his wrist. 

“We need to get the venom out.” 

“Are you serious?” Richie nearly whines. 

“Yes!” Eddie sits up on his knees and turns to face him, his head bumping into the low ceiling of the car. “Who knows where the nearest hospital is. Do you have something sharp? I guess I have razors in my toiletries bag—”

“Pocketknife,” Richie says, producing the thing from seemingly nowhere and extending the blade.

“Oh, okay.” Eddie takes the knife and then grabs Richie’s wrist. The two fang marks, at the base of his thumb, are dotted with blood and the surrounding skin is beginning to swell and discolor. Eddie makes two small cuts, Richie flinching with each one, and blood starts to pool around them.

After a moment of silence, Richie says, “Well, are you gonna…?” 

Eddie pulls back. “No, ew.” 

“What? Really? I thought— You’re the one making me do this!”

“It’s your hand. Suck your own blood.” Eddie turns back to face forward and fiddles with the keys until he finds the ignition. “Plus, I have to drive.”

“Goddamn it, Eddie, if I die…” Richie shuts up and brings his hand to his mouth again. He winces and spits into the front of his t-shirt. 

The nearest hospital is a twenty minute drive away. Richie sucks and spits a few more times, then spends the rest of the ride complaining that it hurts like hell and that his face feels numb and that he’s sweating bullets, like he has a fever. “Is this fatal? Like, how bad is it?”

“I don’t think it’s fatal,” Eddie answers.

“You don’t _think?_”

The rural emergency room is luckily quiet at a quarter to five a.m. and they have an antidote on hand, so it’s not long before Richie is feeling better, sitting on the hospital cot.

“You know,” the nurse says, as she cleans and bandages Richie’s hand. “Copperhead bites aren’t fatal. All you did was make your injury worse, with the whole ‘sucking out the venom' thing. Did you read a lot of adventure books as kids?”

Richie shoots Eddie a murderous look. 

A minute later, she tells them that they’re good to go. “You don’t want to keep me for observation?” Richie asks, eyeing the bed hopefully.

The nurse furrows her brow. “Not necessary. You’ll be fine.”

The sky is beginning to lighten when they reach the car in the hospital parking lot. They don’t speak; Richie apparently doesn’t even have the energy to fight Eddie about his overeager treatment. Both exhausted, they collapse in their seats and get a couple more hours of sleep. 

+

When his eyes open again, Eddie is relieved to see the full morning sun shining in through the windshield. He feels for his phone and is doubly relieved to see another text from Bill. He replies, _I’m glad you’re safe. Richie and I are fine. Please be smart and leave Derry._ Bill is typing within seconds: _You’re still with Richie?_ Eddie doesn’t respond to that. 

After another half hour of just staring at the ceiling, still tired from the lack of sleep but unable to sleep anymore, he reaches to nudge Richie awake. 

Richie makes a sleepy noise of protest but sits up anyway, groaning, and cradling his bandaged hand. “Morning.”

“Good morning. Bill texted me again.”

“Ah.” Richie is at the wheel, and he retrieves the keys from the cupholder between them. “Let’s go find breakfast… coffee.” Along with the keys, he grabs the receipt with the note he scribbled the previous night. “‘It’s trying to kill us,’” Richie reads, squinting at his own handwriting. He holds it up to Eddie. “What the fuck does this mean?”

Eddie’s heart jumps into his throat. “You forgot already?” 

“Forgot what?” 

“Fuck.” Eddie sits up on his knees and scrambles to grab both sides of Richie’s face. “Look at me, Richie, maybe we can—” 

Richie swats his hands away. “I’m _kidding_. I remember.” 

“Oh, fuck you.” Eddie sinks back into his seat and crosses his arms, pouting. “Asshole. This is serious.” 

Richie just laughs. “Should be three hours to New York from here. Plus stops for food, gas.” 

“Can we stop at one of those trucker gas stations with showers, too?” 

“Sure thing, Ed. Can’t have you stinking up my sweet ride.”


	2. React

“Did you tell the rental car company that you’re doing this?”

Richie looks over at Eddie as they buckle their seatbelts. They both have wet hair and fresh clothes and breakfast and coffee in their bellies, and they’re in much higher spirits than they were an hour ago. 

Richie answers, “No…” 

“Don’t you think you should?” 

Honestly, Richie’s had a lot on his mind and it didn’t occur to him that he can’t just fuck off across the country in a rental car. But instead of saying that, he grins and says, “Better to beg for forgiveness than ask for permission, right?”

Eddie drops it. 

It’s barely after nine in the morning when Eddie’s phone rings. He wrestles it out of his pocket, and says, “It’s Mike.”

“Are you gonna—?”

Eddie answers it. “Hello?” For the next few minutes, Eddie mostly listens, and when he does interject with a question, it does little to clarify: “You do realize this makes you sound crazy, right? No, don’t— Hi, Bill. Yeah, I’m with Richie. Fine.” 

He puts the phone on speaker and holds it between them. Mike and Bill take turns explaining something about a Native American ritual and tokens and none of it makes any sense, and their increasingly manic energy doesn’t lend any credibility. 

When they finally fall silent, Richie just says, “Okay.”

“We’ll perform the ritual in three days, with or without you,” Mike says firmly. “I hope it will be with you.” And he hangs up. 

Richie glances over to Eddie and forces a chuckle. “The fuck was that about?”

Eddie makes a small noncommittal noise, and leans back in his seat.

As they get closer to New York, Eddie becomes visibly more anxious, leg bouncing, adjusting and re-adjusting his seat. 

Richie finally asks, “Are you good, dude?” 

“Me? Yeah, fine.” 

“You seem kinda freaked out,” Richie says, figuring it’s because of the phone call. Maybe Eddie feels guilty for leaving; maybe he wants to go back. 

The miles on the signs tick down, the traffic gets thicker, and eventually Richie clears his throat and says, “So, I’m gonna need some directions here.” 

Eddie draws in a sharp breath and turns to face forward. “Um. Exit here, 287.” 

Richie glances over to him, but he’s looking out the passenger side window again. “Okay…” 

Eddie remains silent and still, as it becomes evident that they’re bypassing Manhattan, heading too far inland. Richie doesn’t say anything for a few minutes, figuring Eddie would know better than he does, but it doesn’t seem right. Finally, he says, “Where do you live again? I thought—” 

“I can’t go home,” Eddie blurts. “I just can’t stand the thought of it. You said maybe our memories of Derry weren’t real, but, god it feels realer to me than the past twenty years.” 

“Hey, hey,” Richie says, cutting through his growing panic. “It’s okay. I’m sorry I said that. Obviously, it was real.” 

“I wanted to leave, but it’s not like I have a life worth getting back to,” Eddie says with a dejected laugh. “I’m not like you, or Ben, or Beverly, or Bill— god, you’re all so fucking _successful_, it’s infuriating—” 

“Hey, Ed, if it makes you feel better, I was kind of miserable, too,” Richie admits. “I just didn’t realize it.” 

Eddie chuckles. “That does kind of make me feel better. But I’m sorry to hear it.” 

Richie throws him a quick smile, sure to return his eyes to the road before Eddie can scold him. “It’s never too late to start over, you know.” 

Eddie hums in agreement and after a minute or so of silence, sighs and pulls out his phone. “I should call Myra.” 

Richie takes the exit for the next rest stop and waits, leaning against the hood of the car, while Eddie stands all the way across the parking lot, facing away from him. He barely moves, his back stiff and straight, and the call lasts no more than ten minutes. Then his shoulders slump, he hangs up the phone, and walks back to Richie. His expression is unreadable, blank apart from the crease between his brows.

“How’d it go?” asks Richie, trying to strike an appropriate tone. 

“Well, I just told my wife of five years that I want a divorce over the phone, so.” 

Richie whistles low. “Shit. Well, I’m proud of you, buddy.” He claps a hand to his shoulder, gives him a friendly little jostle. “Onward?” 

Eddie manages a smile. “Yeah, might as well. I’ve always wanted to go on a cross-country road trip.” 

“And what fun circumstances for it.”

+

That afternoon, they’re somewhere in rural Pennsylvania. There’s something mesmerizing about the landscape, and Richie enjoys the driving; the road rolls gently through the hills, the forest only breaking now and then for a dirt driveway. For hours, he turns down Eddie’s every offer to trade spots. What’s more, Richie found some truly awful country music station and every time Eddie tries to change it, he bats his hand away. 

“You know what they say,” he says, turning the volume up. “When in Appalachia…” 

Eddie just rolls his eyes. “Wanna stop to eat soon? Maybe we can switch drivers after.”

“You just want to drive so you can choose the music. I see through your little tricks, Kaspbrack.” 

“Or maybe I’m just hungry because it’s almost two and we haven’t eaten since breakfast,” Eddie says, his tone making it clear that Richie pushed some kind of button. “And I hope we’ll be staying in hotels from now on, I can’t spend another night in this fucking car. I need an actual bed and a shower that’s not at a fucking truck stop—”

There’s a loud _bang_ then, and the front right side of the car drops a few inches. Richie swears and grips the steering wheel harder as he feels the car start to pull in that direction, off the road.

“Don’t brake!” Eddie yells. “Your tire just blew out, don’t fucking brake!”

“_Don’t brake?_” Richie repeats incredulously, but he lifts his foot.

“Just coast to a stop, don’t brake,” Eddie says again, his voice still tinged with panic but more authoritative. “Jesus Christ.” 

Richie does as he’s told; he can hear the flat tire flapping against the pavement. Finally, Eddie gives him the go ahead to pull onto the shoulder. When he puts the parking brake on and kills the engine, he says, “Some luck, huh?” 

They both get out of the car and assess the damage. The front passenger side tire is completely flat, rim resting on the ground. The tear is visible, a two inch hunk of hard plastic wedged into the rubber.

“Pop the trunk,” Eddie instructs. A minute later he locates the car jack, tire iron, and spare. He hands the car jack to Richie then rolls up his sleeves and gets to work loosening the bolts of the flat.

Meanwhile Richie inspects the hinged contraption for a second before placing it on the ground under the car, unsurely. 

“God, this is tight,” Eddie grunts as he pulls on the tire iron again, using his full body weight. 

Richie bites back the impulse to make a dirty joke, for fear it would be a bit too revealing. He sneaks another glance at Eddie’s bared and flexed forearms before returning his attention to the car jack. “So… I just…” He fiddles with a looped piece of metal, tries to rotate it but he’s clumsy with his bandaged hand and it gets caught on the pavement.

Eddie sighs deeply and wipes his palms off on his jeans. “You don’t know how to change a tire, do you?” 

“Uh…”

“You’re forty fucking years old, dude. Come _on_.” 

“It’s never come up before!” Richie says in defense. 

Eddie leans over him to peer up under the car, taps something on the frame. “See this? This spot is reinforced. Crank up the jack and place it under here.”

Richie takes another stab at it, but: “How is this even supposed to work? Do I use the hook?”

Eddie snatches it from him. “You’re hopeless, Rich, you know that? Work on the tire.”

“Fine, Jesus…” Richie picks up the tire iron, and tries loosening one of the bolts. He pushes then pulls then stomps on the lever. “Fuck, that _is_ tight.” 

Eddie walks him through the rest of the process like an overbearing father, and Richie keeps his mouth shut if only to get it over with sooner. Once the spare is on, Eddie gets behind the wheel and drives them to the nearest auto shop.

At least there’s a gas station with a deli next door, so while they wait for the new tire to be put on the car, they finally get a late lunch.

Sitting at a sticky-surfaced table near the bathrooms, Richie tears into his bag of chips while Eddie takes a few bites of his sandwich. “Look,” Richie begins, before licking the salt and vinegar dust from his fingertips. “The shit that’s been happening to us… Yeah, it’s weird to have this much bad luck, but none of it’s really been fatal. I mean, a flat tire? Is It even trying?”

“A tire blowing out on the highway, Rich?” Eddie says with a full mouth. “You easily could have lost control of the vehicle, spun out and killed us.” 

“Well, I… didn’t, obviously.” Richie takes a big bite of his own sandwich, washes it down with a swig of Coke. “Shouldn’t It be harder to fight than this?”

Eddie laughs bitterly. “It likes toying with you, though, doesn’t it?” His voice is strained when he says it, and he reaches for his soda to take a long drink, then coughs. “My mouth feels kinda…” His eyes go wide. “Shit. What’s in this? Hey!” He turns and waves his arms at the cashier. “Hey, what’s in this sandwich?” 

She looks up from the register. “The Italian sub? Uh, salami, mortadella, provolone—” 

Eddie cuts her off, “Are there any nuts?” 

“Uh…” The cashier consults a sheet of paper behind the register. “Oh. The mortadella has pistachio?” 

Eddie leaps to his feet. “Fuck! Rich, we gotta go, I have an EpiPen in my suitcase.” 

“What?” Richie takes another big bite of his sandwich and scrambles after him. 

As Eddie jogs across the parking lot toward the auto shop, he sputters, “What kind of meat has nuts in it? Some kind of sick joke!” 

Richie struggles to keep up, both physically and mentally. “I thought you were allergic to cashews?” 

“It cross-reacts, dickwad! Where’s the fucking car?” 

“There!” Richie points, spotting the car still parked where they left it only a few minutes ago. However, neither of them have the keys. He whirls around and spots an auto shop employee strolling toward it, keys jangling in his hand. As he hurries after Eddie across the parking lot to intercept the keys, Richie calls out, “Why are you calling me a dickwad? I’m trying to help you!” 

“I’m fucking stressed out, I’m about to go into anaphylaxis!” 

While spewing some convoluted explanation, Richie grabs the keys from the startled employee and pops the trunk. The two start rummaging through Eddie’s suitcases and toiletry bag, before pulling them out of the car entirely and letting them thud to the ground. Eddie sinks to his knees and continues frantically unzipping compartments. Richie sort of wants to tease him about the amount of luggage he has, but he thinks he might die if he does that.

So, instead he throws the keys back to the confused auto shop guy and says, “Go change the tire.”

The guy gives them a wary look, but doesn’t say anything before he gets in the car and pulls it into the garage.

“Here!” Eddie exclaims, holding up an EpiPen. Kneeling on the ground, he uncaps the thing then holds it out to Richie.

Richie hesitantly takes it. “Now what?”

“On my thigh, right there.” Eddie taps his leg, takes a few wheezing breaths. “Firm, but not too hard, and hold it for three seconds.”

Richie frowns. “Through your clothes?” 

“Yeah, through my clothes, just do it!” 

Richie tries to hand it back to him. “Why do I have to do it?” 

“Don’t be a pussy, Rich!”

“Jesus Christ, okay…” Richie grabs Eddie’s arm to steady himself and brings the EpiPen down hard on his thigh until he hears the click. 

“Hold it for three seconds,” Eddie instructs again. 

“Okay.” Richie counts to three under his breath, looking down at Eddie’s face. It strikes him how close they are, that Eddie is clutching onto Richie’s arm, and his stomach flips, which is completely idiotic. 

On three, he almost forgets to pull back, but Eddie grabs the EpiPen from him, saying, “That’s good, thanks, Richie. Now, hospital. As soon as we get the car back.” 

Richie stands up and looks back toward the deli, hands in his pockets. “Can I go finish my sandwich?” 

+

Their second emergency room visit in less than twenty-four hours takes longer than the first. The hospital’s busier, and once Eddie is hooked up to an IV, they have to wait a long time before the doctor comes to see them.

“None of it’s been fatal, Richie, huh?” 

Richie glances up from his phone, where he was trying to plan their hotel stay for the night — assuming they get out of here. “What?” 

“What you were saying earlier. I could have _died_.” 

“But you didn’t… and it all still seems awfully mundane, don’t you think? Flat tires, allergy attacks? Where’s the theatrics? That’s not the Pennywise we know and love.” 

Eddie barks a laugh, and his face screws up in that way it does when he’s on his last nerve. “Getting bit by a snake wasn’t dramatic enough for you?” 

“A barely poisonous snake!” Richie protests, his voice ticking up in volume and pitch. “It’s weird, I’ll grant you that, but I’m not sold that it’s… supernatural.” 

“So, we just have the worst luck in the world?” 

Richie shrugs. “Maybe.” 

“Maybe it’s karma for leaving everyone back in Derry,” Eddie says darkly. 

“Maybe,” Richie agrees.

+

When Eddie is discharged, fresh EpiPen in tow, they decide to drive for a few more hours. Nothing like a couple emergency room visits to set you behind schedule. The ride across the rest of Pennsylvania is quiet, maybe even tense; they haven’t heard anything from Derry since the call with Mike and Bill that morning. 

When they cross the border into West Virginia, Richie decides the day’s been long enough and pulls over at a small hotel by the river. “Let’s get a good night’s sleep, then maybe tomorrow we can get a full day of driving in.”

“I wonder which one of us will end up in the hospital tomorrow,” Eddie mutters as he opens the door. He grabs both of his suitcases and his toiletry bag from the trunk, and Richie doesn’t have the energy to tease him about it.

Then the receptionist tells them that they only have single rooms left. 

“Really?” Richie questions tiredly. “What’s everyone doing out here, in the middle of bumfuck—?”

“Beep beep, Richie,” Eddie mutters, elbowing Richie out of the way as he steps up to the desk. “We’ll take a room, thanks.”

“I guess I can get my own,” Richie offers.

“It’s a king size bed, don’t be a pussy.”

And that settles it. 

The room is cheap and appropriately dingy. Richie claims the bathroom first, notices the grime in the sink, the mold growing on the shower curtain. Eddie is probably beside himself. After brushing his teeth, he stares at himself in the mirror for a minute, giving himself something of a pep talk. He can be an adult about this. He can sleep in a bed with his friend and not make it weird. His recently single friend who decided to drop his entire life to run away together.

But maybe that’s reading too much into it, maybe Eddie would have run away with anyone willing to act as enabler. Regardless, Richie’s glad that it’s him.

When he leaves the bathroom, the first thing he hears is: “Richie, there’s dead bugs in the bed.” 

It takes him a few seconds to process and respond. “Seriously?” He looks to where Eddie has pulled back the sheet, and sure enough, there are a couple beetles, maybe a flying ant. “Well, for sixty-five bucks…” 

Eddie rips the sheet off entirely and throws it to the floor with a flourish. “For no amount of money should there be bugs in the bed! Is that really too much to ask? I’m going to the lobby.” 

“God, Eddie, please. I’m so tired,” Richie says, dropping his head in his hands. “I’ll clean it up, okay? It’s one night.” 

Eddie’s face falls in relief, and Richie is sort of surprised that worked. “Okay. Thanks.”

While Eddie’s in the bathroom, Richie strips the sheets and shakes them out in the hallway. They still smell musty, but he’s exhausted enough that he could sleep standing up. He’s settled into one half of the bed, in a t-shirt and boxers, when Eddie comes out of the bathroom.

Eddie pulls back the sheet and inspects it for a moment before climbing in. He’s wearing sweatpants and a white t-shirt; Richie’s eyes fall on the bandaged cotton ball at the crook of his elbow.

“How do you feel?”

“Hm?” Eddie glances over to him. “Good. Fine.”

“Today was a wringer, huh?” Richie settles down until his head is on the pillow and stares straight up at the ceiling. “Do you regret all this yet?” He forces a laugh as he asks it, but it’s not convincing.

“No, I don’t,” Eddie says slowly, like even he can’t believe it. “I’m glad I came to Derry and saw everybody again, and I’m even glad I’m here in some shitty hotel room with you— I mean, really, this place should be condemned, there’s mold everywhere, and did you see all the cigarette burn marks in the bathroom? You bet I’ll be leaving a review on Travelocity.” He grabs his inhaler from the bedside table, gives it a shake. “I’ll be lucky to survive the night.”

“I’ll check to make sure you’re still breathing,” Richie says, shifting to elbow him in the side. He takes Eddie's manic rambling as a sure sign that he’s feeling okay. 

Eddie mumbles, “Thanks,” takes one last puff of his inhaler, and then hits the lights. He rolls onto his back, and the mattress creaks under them. “This bed is probably eighty-percent dust mites by weight.” 

Maybe the dark and his own exhaustion emboldens him, because Richie blurts the question he’s been avoiding asking, afraid of scaring Eddie off: “What are you gonna do in L.A.? Once we get there?”

“_If_ we get there,” Eddie corrects with a snort. “And that’s a big if.” 

That’s probably as good an answer as he’s going to get for now. Richie gives a passing thought to whatever horrors might await them in the middle of the night—bed bugs or carbon monoxide or hook-handed vagrants all seem equally plausible—but he falls asleep quickly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me writing a flat tire scene into a gay fanfic: finally, my bad luck with cars has paid off. 
> 
> this fic is so fun to write, tbh, i love planning out their route and how long it takes it get places and reading reviews for cheap hotels in west virginia. thanks for the kudos and comments so far, let me know your thoughts!


	3. Curse

When Eddie’s eyes open again, he’s pleasantly surprised to see the sun shining through the blinds. Somehow he’s survived another night on this cursed trip. But his bare arms feel a little itchy and his mind flashes to dust mites and bed bugs and god knows what else… He’s about to tear the sheets off and leap out of bed, but he freezes when he notices the soft sound of breathing next to him. Turning his head, he sees that Richie is facing him, on his side, and close. Curled up in the middle of the bed, his head rests on the edge of his pillow, blankets tucked up to his chin. His face is blank, soft, more open without his glasses. 

Eddie smiles a little, thinking of what Richie asked him last night, if he regrets this. He doesn’t, of course he doesn’t. How could he? 

In another moment, as if sensing the eyes on him, Richie blinks awake. He meets Eddie’s gaze briefly before yawning and rolling onto his back. His hair is kind of a mess, shiny at the forehead and sticking up in the back. At this point, a couple days into the trip, his lazy five o’clock shadow has become a scruffy goatee. 

Eddie sits up and scratches at his arms. Might have just been the threadbare sheets, irritating his skin. Hopefully. “Looks like we survived the night.” 

Richie reaches to rap his knuckles on the nightstand. “Don’t tempt fate, Eds.” 

Richie uses the bathroom first and comes out with wet hair and a still unshaven face. When it’s his turn, Eddie wishes he had a pair of flip flops in his luggage for the shower, but he doesn’t. (Quite possibly the only thing he _didn’t_ pack.) So, he takes a quick shower, standing in the grimy tub, thinking of the foot fungus he’s probably going contract. At least Richie will get it, too.

There’s no complimentary breakfast at the hotel, even though the sign outside claims otherwise. Eddie gets in a few sharp words with the clerk at the front desk before Richie all but drags him out by the collar. ("Like you would have eaten here, anyway.") A few miles outside of town, they end up at a Golden Corral breakfast buffet. 

After checking out of the hotel from hell, Eddie thought the worst of his trials were over, but apparently it’s just getting started. He never went to buffets as a kid and there’s still something off-putting about the whole thing. Food kept in the open air for god only knows how long, at the perfect temperature for growing bacteria, food-smeared serving utensils handled by dozens of strangers. 

When they sit down — Richie with his plate piled high with pancakes and hash browns and scrambled eggs and sausage, the whole thing smothered in syrup, and Eddie with a more conservative and well-regimented portion of breakfast items — he pulls a few packets of wet wipes from his wallet. 

“You keep those in your wallet?” Richie says, already chewing a mouthful. “This is like the Eddie Kaspbrak version of keeping a spare condom in your wallet. Always prepared.” 

“Shut up.” Eddie wipes down the handles of his silverware and his own hands and the table surface in front of him. Probably a pointless exercise, but one that makes him feel slightly better. “These places are absolute nightmares. I saw a fly land on the syrup ladle, by the way.” 

Richie shrugs as he takes another bite. “You know, I never get sick. Really. Never missed a day of work because I was sick. And you know why? It’s because I expose myself to germs, I have a strong immune system. I’m not living in some bubble.”

“Well, I’m sorry, Richie, but my immune system is already fucked from my childhood. Sometimes we just have to work with what we got.” 

+

When they stop for a gas and coffee refill mid-morning, Richie emerges from the store with a pair of cheap sunglasses on his face, overlapping his glasses, the tag still dangling off the side. He seems like he really wants Eddie to say something about it, when he slides behind the wheel again. The sunglasses are large and flared, plastic frames encrusted with little rhinestones. Thumbing both pairs of glasses up his nose, he starts the engine.

“It’s sunny,” Richie says, as they pull out of the parking lot. Apparently he couldn’t go more than a few seconds without attention. 

“Shut up and drive, six-eyes,” Eddie mutters. Richie chuckles. 

+

Somehow, the morning passes without incident. Neither comment on it, maybe for fear of tempting fate. After a quick pit stop for lunch—Eddie carefully reads all the ingredients on his gas station sandwich this time—they’re on the road again, somewhere west of Indianapolis. The landscape is beginning to flatten out here, tree-lined farm fields stretching endlessly in all directions.

Eddie is driving now, the cruise control set right at 75, and his feet planted firmly on the floor. It’s easy going; all he has to do is aim straight down the interstate and, every few miles, pass a truck or a trailer. 

He gives more thought to what Richie asked him last night: what he’s planning to do in L.A. once they get there. If they get there. He might have to start taking that _if_ more seriously; they’re still less than halfway there, but the hours are flying by now. He could get another job in insurance without too much trouble, probably even with the same company, but part of him wants a bigger change than that. He realizes he’s been subconsciously expecting Richie to put him up for a while, until he gets his feet under him. He hasn’t exactly confirmed this with Richie, but, he thinks, Richie has never been one to say no to him. 

“Hey, Richie,” he starts.

Richie glances over from the window. He’s been reclined in his seat, intermittently dozing off, for the past few hours, affording some much-needed peace and quiet. “Hm?” 

“I was just thinking, when we get to L.A., I won’t have a—”

“When,” Richie interrupts, a grin spreading across his face. “You said when.”

“_If_ we get to L.A., I won’t have a place to live right away, obviously, and I know it’s a lot to ask, but—”

“Stay with me,” Richie says like it’s simple, obvious. “As long as you need.”

“Thanks.” Eddie glances in the rearview mirror then and spots the silver grill of a huge, black SUV bearing down on them. “Get a load of this jack-off,” he says, feeling a prickle of anger in his chest. “The road is wide open, but he feels the need to ride my ass.” He taps the brakes once and the car comes so close he’s surprised they don’t bump into each other. “Hey, bozo, you could just pass me!” he shouts to the mirror, waving an arm for good measure. 

“Eddie, calm down,” Richie says. 

“I’m calm, I’m fucking calm,” Eddie snaps, as heat flashes across his face. “It’s this asshole who need to calm down. I mean, I’m going 75. The speed limit is 70. What does this guy want from me?” 

When Richie speaks again, it’s obvious he’s trying to break the tension. “You know how everyone who drives a GMC is kind of a jerk? You ever notice that?” 

He taps the brakes again, harder, eyes glued to the rearview mirror. 

“Jesus Christ,” Richie says, a note of real alarm in his voice now, “what are you doing?” 

“Just trying to give him a little scare.” 

“Well, stop. The last thing we need is to get in a crash.” 

Finally the other car swerves into the left lane to pass— and Eddie floors it. 

“Eddie, stop!” 

The other driver, some bearded motherfucker in a t-shirt with cut-off sleeves, flicks him off as he passes. Eddie just goes faster and starts to veer across the dashed centerline. Richie yells at him again, and then there’s a horn blare, and Eddie whips his head forward to see a pickup truck coming in the other direction, down the two-lane highway. 

“Shit.” He slams on the brakes and comes to a screeching halt on the shoulder, the black GMC doing the same behind them. He lets out his breath as the truck passes them—safely—and loosens his grip on the steering wheel. 

“Eddie,” Richie says carefully. “Drive.” 

Eddie’s hand is on the door. “No, I’m just gonna…” He gets out of the car. “Hey, asshole!” 

The guy gets out of his own car and the door slams with a heavy thud. He’s big, over six feet, thick arms, a finger pointed at Eddie as he stalks forward. “I’m the asshole? I was passing you, and you cut me off!” 

Eddie takes a few more steps toward him—lacking anything resembling a plan, but running hot enough to think he doesn’t need one—before he feels Richie’s hand close over his arm, just above his elbow. “Hey, hey, look, we’re sorry. No need to escalate this, okay? Let’s just get back in our cars and keep driving.”

Richie’s grip is tight enough to hurt and he gives a sharp tug in the direction of the car. 

Eddie relents and lets himself be pulled backward a few steps. “Fine.”

“Smart move, pal,” the other guy says, turning toward his own car.

Eddie yanks his arm free from Richie and heads toward the driver’s side, but Richie steps in front of him. “Oh, I don’t think so. Your driving privileges have been revoked.”

Once both doors are closed, with Richie behind the wheel and Eddie in the passenger seat, Richie starts in a level tone, “Hey, man. What the fuck is wrong with you? I always knew you were a little ball of rage, but are you trying to get us killed?” 

“It’s the— it’s the curse thing,” Eddie sputters. 

“It’s not! It’s you having like, actual anger issues. Jesus Christ.” 

The GMC peels out behind them and speeds off down the road and Eddie clenches his fists in his lap. Richie waits a full five minutes before he puts the car into drive and continues on.

\+ 

Eddie spends an hour or two silently sulking while Richie drives. Meanwhile, Richie tunes in and out of local radio stations, before spending a solid forty-five minutes listening to some conservative talk radio station that Richie seems to find amusing, but it makes Eddie slightly nauseous. 

After hearing enough dogwhistles about the ‘global elite’ to last him a lifetime, Eddie breaks his self-imposed silence to say, “Can you turn that off?”

Richie’s hand is on the volume knob in a second. “Sure.” 

Instead of changing the channel, he turns the radio off entirely, which suits Eddie just fine. The hum of the road lulls him and his eyes unfocus as electrical poles pass by the window. 

It’s after dark when they swing through a McDonald’s drive-through and get back on the road, paper-wrapped burgers and soggy-salty fries stashed on the console between them. Richie eats his burger in a few sloppy bites, finishing by the time they’re back on the interstate. Eddie peels back the bun on his own and removes the three pickle slices—

“You’re not gonna eat those?”

—and gives them to Richie. 

They work through the fries for the next half hour, until they’re cold. Eddie thinks about apologizing, but it’s been hours. He doesn’t really want to bring it up.

Before he can work up the nerve to start a conversation, Richie beats him to it: “Can I ask you something, Eddie?” Eddie glances over to him, his face barely lit by the glow of the dashboard. “You left your wife and your job to go on a cursed cross-country road trip with me.” 

Eddie lets out a tense laugh. “Is that a question?” 

“What did you say to her? When you called her?” 

Eddie looks down at the crumpled burger wrapper in his lap. He can’t think of a single reason to lie. They’re both staring straight ahead out the windshield, with no opportunity for prolonged eye contact, and that makes it easier. And he knows that he can trust Richie. They were always good friends, all seven of them, but he and Richie were something else, weren’t they? There’s a reason why they always ended up next to each other, a reason why they always liked to bicker so much, a reason why they’re in this car right now, somewhere in… Arkansas? Missouri? Wherever. 

Maybe he couldn’t recognize it when he was thirteen or fifteen or seventeen, but now, at forty, it’s clearer than anything. So he says, “I told her… that I’m gay. I’ve been… meaning to. And, you know. No time like the present.” 

Richie’s only quiet for a moment. When he speaks again there’s a smile in his voice. “Nothing about an evil clown or a death curse, then?” 

“No, didn’t mention that.” 

After a moment, Richie adjusts his grip on the steering wheel and says, “You know, I’ve been thinking of coming out. Like, professionally. In the middle of an act, just going off-script… It’s been this sort of fantasy for the past few years. My writers in the wings, like… what the fuck is he saying? Cut his mic! Maybe someone in the crowd starts booing. Maybe I even get booed off the stage— this is part of my _fantasy_, isn’t that fucked up? Then the next day there’s some Buzzfeed article, like ‘Richie Tozier came out as gay and the internet is going crazy.’ And then I spend the rest of the week fighting with people on Twitter.” 

Eddie stays very still until Richie finishes. It’s so like him, only to open up after Eddie did first, to bury it under a bit of self-deprecating humor. He knows Richie doesn’t really want to acknowledge the important thing that he said, so he laughs and says, “You should do that.” 

“Yeah? I know, really, that it would be okay for me. You know? Like, yeah there will be some nasty shit in my mentions for a while, but I’m used to that. I kind of enjoy that, in some… weird way. Like, I know my fear is kind of… irrational, at this point, where I am, the people in my life. It’s not like… when we were…” he trails off, but Eddie knows what he’s getting at. “It wouldn’t put me in any actual danger or risk blowing up anything that I don’t… _want_ to blow up. But it also feels too late, somehow. My stage persona is kind of aggressively straight, so how do I come back from that?” 

“It’s never too late to start over,” Eddie says with a smile. 

Richie glances over to him. “Who told you that?” 

“Some idiot. But I think he was right about that.” 

Richie returns his eyes to the road and it’s clear he’s fighting to keep the smile from spreading too far. “That’s pretty sappy, Eds.” 

“Stop calling me Eds.” 

“Oh, you love it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I keep having to drag this out because I shot myself in the foot by putting “Slow Burn” in the tags when the timeline for this whole fic is like three days. So. ghdsjfa the slow burn is the 27 years okay!!! all adult-reddie is inherently a slow burn!


	4. Halfway

“Guess what,” Richie says as they ride the elevator to tonight’s hotel room, bags in tow. “We’re officially halfway to L.A.”

Eddie’s face lights up. “Seriously?” 

“Yep. Sixteen hundred miles down, sixteen hundred to go. Give or take.”

“Is that all?” Still smiling, Eddie leads the way down the hallway. They got a room with two beds this time, and the hotel is much nicer than last night’s. Not that that’s saying much. 

They throw their suitcases on the foot of either bed, and while Eddie begins to arrange his toiletries in the bathroom, Richie calls out, “We should celebrate. See what’s there to do in good ol’ Missour’a.”

Eddie rolls his eyes at the poor imitation of a southern drawl, but says, “Yeah, I could use a drink.”

So, Richie pulls out his phone and searches for nearby bars. 

It’s a college town, apparently. The first bar they end up at, everyone is half their age. As soon as they walk through the door, Eddie’s hand is on Richie’s elbow — “Maybe we try a different place?” — but Richie tugs him along to a table for two against the back wall. 

Eddie changed before they left, but it’s not clear why. All he did was trade one polo shirt and pair of jeans for fresh ones. Richie didn’t change, just shrugged on his jacket. Too warm for it, but it feels wrong going out at night without it. 

“What do you want?” Richie asks him, once he’s seated at the high top and looking like he’s not going to bolt for the door.

“A beer.”

Richie glances back at the wall of taps behind the bar. “Can you be more specific?” 

“A pale ale is fine.”

The bartender, a young woman with an intricate sleeve of tattoos, steers Richie toward some local brew, and he returns to the table with two pint glasses of it. Eddie thanks him and takes a sip while glancing around the bar. This place is busy on a weeknight; a loud group of college kids stand in a huddle just behind Eddie, evidently celebrating one tiara-crowned girl’s birthday. In less than a minute, they accidentally elbow him twice and only apologize once. 

Richie leans in over the table and tries to catch his distracted eye. “Eddie, you went to UMaine, right?” 

“No, uh, UNE.” 

“Oh, right. How was that?” 

“It was… fine.” Apparently Eddie’s not going to say much more on the subject so Richie decides to do what he does best: fill the silence by talking about himself. 

“I did almost two years at UCLA. Which is a good fucking school, you know? Wasted on me. I started doing improv toward the end of my first year, then stand-up after that, and it took off, and I dropped out. I was studying, uh, English. Which was basically writing papers about books I never read. I was _good_ at it, but like, how do you justify spending money on that? I did, uh, radio, for a while. DJ’ed for the college radio station. That was fun. It started with music, but then I started doing—”

Richie stops talking when he feels a tap on his shoulder and hears his name: “Richie Tozier?” 

Richie turns to look at the young woman—probably twenty-two, blonde—and the two friends flanking her. “Yeah?” 

“Oh, hi, I thought it was you,” she says, a relieved smile spreading on her face. “I saw you perform at Mizzou last year.” 

Richie smiles back. “Oh, yeah? I vaguely remember that. Was it alright?” 

“It was okay,” she says with a teasing shrug and Richie mocks offense. “Are you in town for a show?” 

“No, actually, I’m driving all the way across the country with my friend Eddie, here—” Eddie gives a solemn nod as the eyes turn to him, “—and it just so happens that Springfield is exactly halfway between Maine and Los Angeles. So, naturally, we have to celebrate.” 

“Oh, wow. Any reason for the road trip?” 

“Research,” Richie answers quickly. “For a new act I’m working on. It’s gonna be a blatant rip off of that Out in America shtick on NPR, but don’t tell my agent. We really should be filming this as a documentary, huh, Eds? Maybe we loop back around to Maine and start over, capture it all on camera?”

Eddie huffs a laugh and takes another drink. 

After exchanging a few more pleasantries—Richie inquires about what they’re studying and where they’re from—the girls ask for a picture, and Richie obliges, staying in his seat as the three huddle around him. They thank him and head back to the bar, passing the phone around to see how it turned out. 

“You never totally get used to that,” Richie says, facing Eddie again. He’s smiling into his beer, but there’s a distinct hint of annoyance to the way his mouth twists. Richie bites: “What?” 

“I should’ve seen this coming. You, a stand-up comedian.”

“Something you wanna say to me, Kaspbrak?”

“Of course you found a way to get paid to be the center of attention.” 

“You know what they say.” Richie raises his drink to his lips, eyebrows raised. “Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.” 

“I thought you said you hated it.”

Richie nearly chokes as he takes a sip. “What?”

“You said you were miserable.” 

Thumbing his glasses back up the bridge of his nose, Richie breaks eye contact. He feels a little laid bare, as his words from a couple days ago—words he only said, really, to make Eddie feel better—are thrown back at him. Shifting his weight in his seat, he deflects: “Well, sure, but miserable in the way that everyone’s miserable.”

Eddie huffs. “I don’t think _everyone’s_ miserable.” 

“No?” 

Eddie doesn’t answer right away. He throws one arm over the back of his seat and leans back, looking Richie up and down. “What would make you not miserable, then?”

“If I knew, don’t you think I’d be doing it?” 

“I don’t know.” Eddie seems to stiffen at that. “Are you saying you just do what you want all the time?”

Richie looks down at his drink, the bit of dried-on foam clinging to the rim of the glass. He can’t say this is exactly how he thought the evening would go. Honestly, he had hoped that half a drink in, they’d be making out in a bathroom stall. Instead, Eddie seems miffed at him. But the tension, he figures, can’t be all bad. If, after all this, everything felt just the same between them, they’d be stuck. Something has to change, and if the tension builds, it has to break. 

“I don’t know,” Richie says, letting a bit of snappiness into his tone. “I mean, I’m not going to spend my life doing shit that makes me miserable and then complain about it and not change anything.”

“Well, some of us have, like, actual adult responsibilities, Richie.” His voice is low, tense. “You know, my mother was sick, for a long time. I couldn’t just move across the country and drop out of college and—”

“You could have, though,” Richie interrupts, and he feels a bit of heat blooming on his cheeks, his jaw clench. “You didn’t owe her a thing.”

Eddie sets his glass down with a _clink_, missing the coaster. “You act like it’s so fucking simple.” 

“Hey, hey…” Richie holds his hands up. “I’m sure it wasn’t easy. I’m sorry. The important thing is, now… we’re making changes, right? Taking charge.”

Eddie nods. “I’m not good at this, you know? What if this is all just stupid, impulsive… a mid-life crisis? That’s what Myra said, you know. ‘A mid-life crisis.’”

“What, like, you suddenly quit your job and dumped your wife to drive to L.A. with a childhood friend who you haven’t seen in twenty years and also you’re gay now?” Richie laughs as Eddie winces and glances around the bar, as if afraid to be overheard. “I guess that does sound like a mid-life crisis.” 

“Shut up, Richie.”

“It’s not a bad thing!” Richie leans in and lowers his voice. “I think you did the best you could have, given the circumstances, given the upbringing you had— we _both_ had. And I think it takes a lot of balls to do what you’re doing.”

Eddie scoffs. “Running away from my responsibilities? Both in New York and in Derry… What’s brave about that?”

“Not running away, running _towards_, right?”

Eddie chuckles. “If only Bev were here to see you quoting her.” 

Richie smiles and leans back in his chair. “I’m glad you’re here, Eds. And, you know… I would have stayed back there if you stayed. I would have fought an evil clown, really, I just… you know. Wanted to be with you.” He forces himself to hold Eddie’s eye for a few long seconds, not back away from it, let the weight of it settle in.

Then Eddie laughs, looks down. “I would have stayed if _you_ stayed.”

+

After they finish their drinks, they head back outside and wander downtown for a while, never quite agreeing on the next bar to hit up. So instead they end up in a park, sitting on the edge of a low wall, watching some college students who are smoking weed and not being subtle about it. 

“Do you remember, um…” Eddie begins and crosses his arms across his chest. “The night before you left for college? We drove around Derry all night, in your dad’s car. At some point, after one a.m., you dropped off Bill and Stan, but I stayed out with you until, like… three. I already knew I was in for it, for staying out so late, so why not, you know…”

When he trails off, Richie says, “Yeah. I do. Why?”

“I dunno…” Eddie uncrosses his arms and leans back, propped up on his hands. “I was so excited to fly out to California and visit you. I was planning on winter break. Saving up money here and there. Then, you know, you left and I didn’t really hear from you. I think I put that money toward a car.”

“I forgot,” Richie says quietly. “I’m sorry.”

“I know. I forgot, too, eventually. When I moved away. Maybe it was slower, for me. And every time I came back, to see my mom, I remembered a little, but a little less, each time. And when she died and I moved away for good, that was when I… lost everything.”

Richie clicks his tongue. “As if traumatizing us wasn’t bad enough, the bastard has to steal our lives, too, huh.”

“Would anything have been different?” Eddie asks with sudden intensity. “If we remembered?”

“Yeah,” Richie answers, voice full of false confidence. “I think so.”

“Really? I mean, I remembered for a while, and I didn’t… do anything. Didn’t reach out to you, never visited…”

Richie’s quiet for a few seconds, the blood beginning to rush through his ears. “What would be different if you did?”

“I don’t know.” Eddie pauses, but it looks like the wheels are turning, his eyes focused and hand gripped on the edge of the wall; Richie lets him work through it. “I guess I thought maybe that… we…” He waves a hand back and forth between them. “You know.” 

When he speaks, Richie can barely hear his own voice over his own pulse. “I thought that, too. Wanted it, for a long time. Still, uh… still do.” He barks a hoarse laugh. 

Eddie turns to him suddenly and meets his eye, the intensity leaving Richie half-dazed. “Me, too. For a long time.”

Richie lets his eyes flicker around his face: the bit of gray at his temples, his eyebrows that knit together, perpetually earnest and imploring, the straight line of his mouth. “Just to be clear, we’re talking about the two of us, like, boning, right?”

Eddie’s eyes grow wide for half a second before he collapses forward on a big laugh. He steadies himself with a hand on Richie’s knee—unnecessary, but Richie savors the contact—and continues wheezing, something between laughter and an asthma attack. 

Richie cracks a smile and reaches to pat his back. “Banging? Shagging? Going to pound town?” 

Eddie coughs into his elbow and when he sits back up his eyes are shiny and face flushed. Richie rubs soothing circles between his shoulder blades. “Richie, shut the fuck up. I swear to god.” 

+

The walk back to their hotel takes an eternity. The elevator ride to the third floor even longer. Richie can barely look at him, his face hot and body thrumming with nerves. Eddie appears to be in the same boat; he seems fascinated with the safety protocol plastered on the elevator door. But maybe that's not that out of the ordinary. When the door to their hotel room finally clicks shut behind them, Richie takes a deep breath. 

“So, Ed—” 

That’s as far as he gets before Eddie’s mouth is on his. 

“Fuck,” he manages between biting kisses, as his back bumps into the door. Eddie’s hands are around his back, inside his jacket, and he can feel the heat of them through his t-shirt. Richie's glasses are already askew on his face. “Don’t you think we should… talk first?”

“Don’t you ever stop talking?” Eddie presses his teeth to the skin just below his jaw and Richie’s knees go a bit weak. 

“Fuck,” he breathes again. “Okay.” He gets his hands around Eddie’s waist and walks him backward a few steps to the nearest bed. Eddie’s suitcase is still on the foot of the bed, so he reaches to clumsily shove it to the floor and is pleasantly surprised when Eddie doesn’t complain about his shit spilling onto the carpet. Instead, Eddie kicks off his shoes and crawls backward onto the mattress. 

Richie rips off his jacket and discards his own shoes as he climbs in after him, half of his brain unable to process that this is happening, and the other half just trying to enjoy it. Tossing his glasses haphazardly toward the other bed, he settles down with one knee between Eddie’s legs, braced up on his hands on either side of Eddie’s shoulders. 

And Eddie’s words flash across his mind—_Don’t you ever stop talking?_—but he can’t help himself. “Have you been with a guy before?” 

Eddie fidgets beneath him. “Yeah.” 

“Really?” 

“Don’t act so surprised, asshole.” 

“But you still got married?” 

Eddie winces. “Actually, it… didn’t really start until after I got married.” 

Richie’s eyes go wide. “Eddie, you harlot!” 

“Shut up, Richie.” Eddie’s wriggling continues as he struggles to get out from under Richie’s weight. 

But Richie pins him down, buries his face in the crook of his neck. “That’s kind of hot, actually… If only we did this a little sooner, I could have been a home-wrecker.” 

Eddie’s hands find the small of his back and he murmurs against his ear, “Well, I’m not divorced yet.”

Richie laughs heartily and lifts his head to kiss him again.


	5. Storm

When Eddie wakes up in the morning, Richie is pressed firmly to his back, an arm secured around his waist, breath warm on his neck. The few inches Richie has on him make the fit just about perfect. Nestling back against him and sighing contently, Eddie realizes that nothing bad happened to them yesterday. At least not anything supernatural-bad. Most of what happened yesterday was pretty good, actually. Richie’s chest hair tickles lightly against his skin, a reminder. 

Maybe at some point, deep in flyover country, they passed outside of Its sphere of influence. Or—maybe more realistically—they’re being lulled into some false sense of security before the real fun begins. Eddie’s feeling a little overconfident at the moment, drunk on the skin to skin contact, so he thinks, foolishly: _Bring it on_. 

When Richie wakes up twenty or so minutes later, Eddie pretends he has just woken up as well, rubbing at his eyes and yawning as Richie untangles himself and rolls onto his back. Eddie turns over to face him, nerves settling into his stomach as he does.

Richie smiles at him for a moment before glancing down to his bare chest. “Wait, are you naked? Am _I_ naked? Did we have sex last night?” He can hardly keep up the act, still grinning from cheek to cheek.

Eddie groans and leans forward to mumble against his neck, “Shut _up_, Richie.”

“You know, you tell me to shut up a lot.”

“And yet you never do.” 

Richie chuckles, voice still sleep-husky, and brushes his lips to Eddie’s forehead. Eddie lets go of his lingering worry. This was not a mistake.

They almost don’t make it out of their room in time for check-out. Richie complains a little about being hungry, needing breakfast, but that thought seems forgotten when Eddie steps out of the bathroom post-shower wearing only a towel around his hips. (Despite his insistence otherwise, he knew exactly what he was doing.) And when Eddie says, “Your turn,” Richie says, “Yeah, I believe it is.”

Sex with Richie is intense, slightly terrifying, and so unlike his previous experiences, both with women and men. Eddie tries to stay present though, open. Richie’s constant—and he does mean _constant_—attempts at humor help to ease them both into it, take the edge off the mortifying vulnerability. At one point, Eddie asks him what he wants, what he likes, and after a moment Richie lets out a small laugh and admits he doesn’t know. No matter. They’ll figure it out.

So, afterward, Eddie needs to clean up again. Instead of breakfast, they get lunch, and by noon, they’re finally on the road.

A little over an hour later, they pass the border into Oklahoma, Richie at the wheel, humming along to country music. At this point, Eddie wonders if his appreciation is more than ironic. The landscape is unbelievably flat here, in a way Eddie wouldn’t have thought possible. In any direction, all he can see is wheat fields, rippling and rolling like waves, and the curve of the horizon. The sky is overcast, lending a monochrome gray tint to the whole scene. 

After a while, Eddie breaks the pleasant silence: “Can I ask you something?” 

“Shoot.”

“You said you felt this way for a ‘long time’… How long, exactly?”

Richie laughs, sounding a bit uncomfortable. “I’m not gonna stroke your ego, Eds.”

To be honest, this whole thing is doing some favors for Eddie’s self esteem, but that’s not why he wants to know. “Well, like, since Derry, obviously. But are we talking high school…?”

Richie’s quiet for long enough that Eddie thinks he’s not gonna answer, but then he says, “I think I was consciously aware of it by the time we were twelve—”

“_Twelve?_”

“—but looking back, I mean. There was always something going on there—,” he gestures back and forth between them, “—don’t you think?”

All Eddie can say is, “_Twelve?_” again. 

Richie shrugs. “Yeah, man, is that so weird? Kids have crushes at twelve. Ben was writing shitty love haikus, wasn’t he?”

“Yeah, but he’s straight, you can’t compare that… You knew you were gay?”

“Yeah.” He shrugs again, lifting a nonchalant hand off the steering wheel. “I wasn’t thrilled about it, but it wasn’t hard to figure out what was going on.” Eddie’s quiet for a moment, stewing, and Richie notices. Throwing him a sideways glance, he says, “What? I mean, it’s fine that it took you longer to—”

“It’s just, like, you were a fully self-actualized gay pre-teen, and I was so deep in denial well into my fucking thirties that I got _married_—and to a carbon copy of my _mother_ no less—but yeah, it’s _fine_, you know, everything in its fucking time, I guess.” Eddie catches his breath, letting his outburst hang in the air between them for a moment. Then he sighs and fiddles with the lever under his seat, trying to recline the backrest, but he can’t get it to budge. “This fucking thing again,” he mutters, pushing against it with his back a few more times before it catches and slams backward.

“Have you ever tried yoga, Eds?”

“I fucking hate yoga.”

“What about, like, boxing?”

Eddie cracks a smile in spite of himself. “That could be fun.”

+

They’re just outside of Tulsa when it starts raining. At first it’s gentle, but soon it’s coming down in blinding sheets on the windshield, the sound of it drowning out the radio. As Richie crawls along at barely more than 30 miles per hour, Eddie checks out the radar on his phone. 

“Severe thunderstorm warning.” 

“Ah.” The windshield wipers are flying on max speed, but doing little to clear the torrent of water. “It’s really fucking windy, too, I can feel it,” Richie comments, his hands tight on the steering wheel as he leans forward. 

“Maybe we should pull over and wait it out,” Eddie suggests. 

“Nah, it’s not that bad.” 

At the first _clunk_ of hail hitting the roof of the car, Eddie makes the suggestion again—this time, more of a demand—and Richie relents. He pulls over, right tires rolling into the gravel shoulder, parks and clicks the hazard lights on. Eddie checks the radar again, the angry red splotch covering most of northeastern Oklahoma. “This could be a while.”

“How will we ever pass the time…” Richie turns his head slowly toward him, grinning, as he unbuckles his own seat belt. Eddie’s a bit rattled from the storm, but he’s not opposed to taking his mind off of it for a while. So, he unbuckles his own seatbelt and leans over the center console to meet Richie halfway. 

The angle’s uncomfortable and a little frustrating, head craned to one side, unable to press up against each other. He's also beginning to wish he had told Richie to shave that morning; Eddie's going to look like he has a rash on half his face pretty soon. “Of course you had to get the one car without a real backseat,” Eddie mutters when Richie dips his head to mouth at his neck. 

“I wanted to impress my crush, sue me.” 

“It makes you look like an asshole.”

“Is that not your type?”

“Shut up.” 

“Again, with the ‘shut up.’” And he does, but only to kiss him, his intentions clear from the way he coaxes his mouth open. Then with a hand on his chest, holding him gently in place against the reclined backrest, Richie says, “Just relax.”

Eddie nods, and tries to, as Richie works at the fly of his jeans. Staring at the ceiling, Eddie focuses on the sound of rain and on the feeling; he threads his fingers in Richie’s hair. Thunder rumbles, distant. Somehow it feels so safe and private, shrouded in the storm, like they’re the only two people on earth. (_Why_ did they never do this as teenagers?) 

They both startle when Eddie’s phone starts vibrating harshly on the dashboard. 

Richie sits up, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand, as Eddie fumbles to silence it. “Someone calling you?”

“No, it’s…” Eddie freezes. “Severe weather alert. Tornado warning.”

“Shit.” Richie seems far from concerned. “Which one’s the bad one again? Watch or warning?”

“Warning’s the bad one, dipshit.”

“Hey, now.” 

But Eddie can’t spare a thought to hurting Richie’s feelings—or to his own flagging erection, as he hurriedly zips his jeans back up—because now he’s on the verge of panic. The rain has let up slightly, but the wind is whipping through the roadside trees and howling through the cracks around the car door. A stray tree branch smacks into the windshield and they both jump; it blows away just as quickly. 

“What do you think we should do?” Richie asks, clutching the keys in his right hand. “Keep driving?”

Eddie slaps the keys out of his hand which was probably not strictly necessary. “No! That’s the worst idea!”

“Well, I’m all ears, pal.” 

“Cars are one of the worst places to be for a tornado,” Eddie says, glancing back again, through the rear window. The trees are bent at just about a ninety-degree angle, ominous cloud billowing above them. Lightning flashes. He turns to face forward again and opens the passenger side door to get a better look outside.

“Hey!” Richie shouts, as the wind rips the door open. “What are you doing?!”

“There’s a ditch on the side of the road,” Eddie yells back. “If it gets much worse, we have to go there for shelter.” 

“Are you fucking serious? I’m not getting out of the car!”

“We might have to.” Eddie feels a certain amount of clarity, even as his heart pounds against his rib cage. No way this is a false alarm, not with their track record. Good thing he’s always been the best at preparing for the worst.

Richie’s got his phone out and as he types, he mutters along, “Tornado stay in car or get out.” After a few moments of reading, eyes scanning and lips moving, he says, “Shit. Okay. You’re right. Check this out.”

He shows Eddie some webpage that looks like it hasn’t been updated since 1995. But the photo of the wrecked hull of a pickup truck lodged in a tree speaks for itself. Richie’s hand is on the door and he nods grimly at Eddie. 

Staying low to the ground, they run upwind from the car a hundred yards or so—Eddie holding onto Richie’s arm as he leads the way—before tumbling into the ditch. It’s flooded by now, but neither have any qualms about diving to the ground, as the wind threatens to knock them off their feet. With elbows and knees sinking into the mud and rain pelting their backs, they wait it out. 

Eddie’s shaking, from the cold and probably from the adrenaline, but somehow he’s not afraid. Richie’s right beside him, shoulders pressed together, but he still has to raise his voice over the wind: “Cover your head with your hands!”

Richie yells back: “Yeah, I remember tornado drills!” 

The direction of the wind changes above them, and there’s a sound of crunching metal, shattering glass. Eddie resists the urge to look up. It probably only lasts a minute or two before the wind slows and the rain clears. Eddie lifts his head slowly; the sky is brightening. He sits up on his knees, and tugs on Richie’s shoulder so he sits up, too. 

The road is scattered with torn tree limbs and trash and debris. One power pole across from them is half-felled, the lines pulled taut as it sways. Sitting a good distance from where they left it, is the rental car. It’s upside down with a shattered windshield. Both doors are open and twisted away from the frame. 

Richie lets out a low whistle. They look at each other for a moment, speechless. Both of their fronts are soaked and covered in mud, hair wet and windswept; Richie’s glasses are smudged and crooked on his face. 

Eddie stands and clambers up the mud-slick slope to the road. There’s not a building in sight in either direction, nor another vehicle. He takes his phone out of his pocket. He has a few bars at least, decent battery left. They can probably recover their luggage from the car, at least the important stuff. 

Richie’s beside him again, hands in his pockets, and still silent. 

Eddie’s the first one to speak. “I vote we call a cab to take us to the Tulsa airport and fly back to Derry.” 

Richie nods. “What if our plane… has an engine failure? Runs into a flock of geese? Has a drunk pilot? Gets hijacked by terrorists?”

Eddie shrugs. “I’ll take those odds. I can’t live like this forever. We’ll be back in time for the fucking ritual, or whatever, and this will be over, one way or another.” He holds up his phone and takes a few steps toward what’s left of the rental car. “I’m calling Mike.”

Richie doesn’t argue; Eddie knew he wouldn’t.


	6. Ritual

When he arrives, the cab driver looks back and forth between the wrecked car and Richie and Eddie in their muddied clothes. “What happened to you?” Richie doesn’t even have the wherewithal to make a joke.

Somehow, there are exactly two seats left on a direct flight from Tulsa to Bangor, leaving at 3:15 in the afternoon. They’ll be back by 9pm, local time. It’s so unlikely that it would feel like good luck, if it wasn’t bringing them right back where they were trying to escape. “This motherfucker has sway over Delta?” Richie mutters as he purchases the tickets from his phone.

When they spoke earlier, Mike said they should do the ritual that night, as soon as Richie and Eddie are back in town. Apparently they’ve had to all but sedate Bill to stop him from going in alone. (Typical.)

While en route to the airport, Richie says, “I guess I should call Avis. See if they have tornado coverage.” 

Eddie raises his eyebrows. “How are you gonna explain what the car was doing halfway across the country?” 

“That’s none of their business.”

Upon arriving at the airport, first they change in the bathroom and stuff their soiled clothes into the garbage. Then they haul ass through security and barely make it to the gate on time. But of course they do. If they had dawdled in the airport bar for an hour, their flight would have been delayed, Richie’s sure of it. 

It would be wise to get some rest on the plane, but there’s no way in hell that’s happening. The flight goes smoothly, but Richie knows it’s not good fortune. As long as they’re moving toward Derry, and whatever waits for them there, they won’t face any obstacles. He took the middle seat, which is a sacrifice he’s not going to let Eddie forget; Eddie stretches a leg into the aisle while Richie’s knees are pressed against the seat in front of him.

Mike picks them up from the airport, Bill as his copilot. “What made you change your mind?” he asks as they slide sheepishly into the backseat of his sedan. 

“Just started to feel bad for leaving you losers behind,” Richie says.

“And our car got totaled in a tornado in Oklahoma,” Eddie adds dryly. 

Bill blurts, “Holy shit.”

Half an hour later, the six of them stand outside of Neibolt. The other losers give Richie and Eddie some shit for a while, until Richie says, “If you’d rather we leave again, we’ll get going—” 

Eddie cuts him off and says, “It was all Richie’s idea, I wanted to stay and help.” 

“You do whatever Richie tells you to do?” Bev asks, raising her eyebrows.

Eddie sputters for a moment and Richie says, “Of course he does. Years of training don’t wear off that easily.”

Armed with a couple loose fence stakes and determination, they enter Neibolt. Like they did 27 years ago, they descend the stone well into the sewers. But unlike the last time, they keep going, farther and deeper. The temperature drops and the air is thick and humid. Somehow there’s still ambient light, a murky glow that can’t be the sun.

When they emerge from the narrow tunnels into a huge cavernous space, no one questions whether they’re in the right place. It’s quiet down here, eerie. Gravity seems suspended as jagged sheets of rock reach up like plants growing toward the light. They stand in a circle around Mike’s stolen Native American artifact and look to him for guidance. “Your tokens,” he prompts. 

Bill, Ben and Bev obediently retrieve items from their pockets.

“Our what?” Richie asks.

“Your t- your _tokens_,” Bill interjects. “The sacrifice. You were s-s-supposed to get tokens.” 

Richie exchanges a look with Eddie. “Well, we did not do that.”

“Yeah, I don’t even know what that means,” Eddie adds.

“We told you!” Mike says throwing his hands up in frustration. “We told you this over the phone!”

They stare back at him blankly. Then Eddie sighs and digs into the pocket of his hoodie and retrieves his inhaler. “I mean, does this work? It’s, like, a symbol of my childhood or whatever.” He takes one last puff and tosses it into the flames.

Richie pats his jeans pockets, racking his brain, when he feels something. “Oh.” He pulls out the keys for the rental car. “Whoops. I guess I still have these.” He drops them into the fire. “It could be a metaphor, just think about it.”

The rest of the losers burn their own tokens, and from there it happens rather quickly. The ritual _doesn’t work_. It doesn’t work and now they’re stranded maybe a half mile under ground at the mercy a giant clown-spider. It fucking sucks. They get split up for a while, because of course they do, and when Richie and Eddie find their way back to the cave, they see that Mike is wrapped in one of Its tentacles. And it doesn’t look like he’s going to get out of it on his own.

So, Richie picks up a rock and throws it as hard as he can, right toward that big white forehead. He’s angry enough to not even register fear. “Hey, fuckface!”

It turns toward him and there’s a blinding yellow light before everything goes dark.

+

When Richie comes to again, he’s laying on the cold, damp stone and Eddie is above him, patting his face and shouting, “Wake up, Richie! I think I killed him! Richie, I think I did it!” 

Richie can see it before it happens, so clearly it feels like a memory: a giant claw bursting through Eddie’s chest like that scene in _Alien_. So without thinking, he grabs Eddie’s shoulder and kicks off the rock with one leg, rolling them over the edge of the rocks. Eddie shouts as they tumble, and Richie’s hears his jacket sleeve rip before he feels anything. 

But then, when they land at the bottom of a narrow cavern, he does feel it. His right arm was caught by one of the crab-like claws, gashed from above his elbow to halfway down his forearm, the sleeve hanging off in tatters.

“Richie, what the— oh my _god_.” Eddie covers his mouth, eyes round as they land on Richie’s arm.

It mostly feels _hot_, and Richie can see the almost-black blood soaking what remains of his sleeve. It crosses his mind that he might go into shock before he feels the pain. “Does it look bad?”

He hears Bev shriek from behind him, and that answers that question. The rest of the losers huddle around, as Pennywise claws at the entrance to cave, sending rock crumbling to the ground. After a few frantic seconds, Eddie says in his Authoritative Voice, “Everyone stand back! I need space.” 

They obey without protest and Eddie moves in again, ripping off his own hooded sweatshirt. As he says over and over, “You’re gonna be okay, you’re gonna be okay,” he wraps up Richie’s arm and applies pressure with his hands. 

“Am I gonna lose my arm, doc?” Richie says, his smile feeling more like a grimace. Eddie shushes him, and Richie thinks it’s just a gentler version of his usual _Shut up, Richie_.

Suddenly the rest of the losers are gone and he’s not sure where they went. He hasn’t heard anything in a while, and that bodes either well or very badly. He knows he’s losing blood and he knows that that might become a problem. The cave is damp and cold; his teeth are chattering. He doesn’t realize how violently he’s shaking until Eddie positions them so Richie’s laying propped up against his chest and holds him firmly. 

A while later, he hears the voices of his friends, distant and echoing. They’re chanting something, and it grows louder until he can make out the words: “Clown! Clown! Clown!”

“What the fuck,” he breathes. Nothing feels quite real. “Eddie. What are they doing?” 

“I don’t know, shh.” Eddie touches his face, a brush of fingertips on his cheek. 

From there, Richie only remembers flashes. The sound of Bill and Bev yelling his name, being hauled to his feet. Hands under his armpits, hoisting him up onto Mike’s back. Splashing through the sewers, the dank sour smell, all too familiar at this point. The cloth upholstery of the rear bench seat of Mike’s car, his head in Eddie’s lap. He wants to say to Mike, “Sorry for bleeding all over your car,” but he can’t speak. He makes some weak groaning sound instead and Eddie shushes him again, then strokes his hair as he yells at Mike to step on it. Bill, from the front passenger seat, bites back, “He’s going as f-fast as he can.” 

Then he wakes up in a hospital bed. His limbs feel heavy and everything is slightly warm, fuzzy. He blinks a few times before he realizes the reason why he can’t see much is because he’s not wearing his glasses. The room is filled with muted sunlight, blinds drawn across the window. There’s an IV taped to the back of his left hand, and his right arm is bandaged. He doesn’t feel pain, just a dull ache that starts in his shoulder, and he’s vaguely aware that he’s hungry. 

Glancing around the room, he recognizes the blurry figures surrounding him by the color of their clothes, their height and hair. Eddie’s closest to him, asleep on a chair beside the bed, head lolled to the side, propped up on one hand. Mike and Bill are sat in chairs against the other wall, leaning on each other as they sleep. Ben and Bev are awake however, standing at the foot of the bed. Bev’s leaned against Ben’s shoulder, his arm around her. 

Richie huffs a laugh and his chest aches. Their heads snap up but he can’t see their expressions. “You two, huh? About time.” 

They separate and are around him in an instant, Ben clutching his uninjured arm and Beverly caressing his face. “Us?” Ben says with a disbelieving, almost giddy laugh. “What about _you?_”

“What about me?”

“Eddie told us,” Bev explains. 

“That dickhead,” Richie says fondly. “He knew I wanted to see the looks on your faces.”

“How do you feel?”

Before Richie can answer the question, he hears his name called by the rest of the now-awakened losers. Bill’s hand is on his shoulder and he hears Mike’s deep chuckle as he says, “Look who decided to show up.”

Then Ben is shoved aside and Eddie is there, taking up his whole field of vision, grabbing at his shoulders and face, fretting—“Richie, don’t you fucking _dare_ do that to me, I swear to god, I thought you were gonna fucking die, and after all this—” Eddie starts kissing him, quick forceful pecks on his forehead, cheek, eye, lips, “—that would have been a real dick move. I would’ve been really fucking angry with you.”

“I know, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Richie repeats it like a mantra, not sure why he’s apologizing, as he submits to the borderline violent display of affection.

“You better be.” The scolding ends with a nice hug, all things considered. It’s a bit too tight and Richie’s bad arm tingles painfully, but Eddie cradles the back of his head and rubs his back. It evens out.

+

They keep him for twenty-four more hours. He spends most of his remaining hospital stay sleeping, periodically waking up see at least one other person sat in the room with him, either reading or eating vending machine snacks or dozing off themselves. Bev is there a lot, and Eddie almost always. He’s not up for a lot of conversation when he does wake up. They give him soup and Jell-O cups and other bland mush, and once Eddie offers to help him use the bathroom and Richie says, “I hate you so much,” before hauling himself out of bed to go by himself. Not without effort, he does feel weak, but they’ve got a good few decades in them before they reach that point. When he wakes up next, it’s dark, and he slurs to Bill, “You gotta try this stuff,” gesturing to the IV line. Bill laughs and says, “Sure, buddy.”

All five of the losers are there when Richie gets to change back into his own clothes—Eddie brought him an outfit from his luggage—and walk out of the hospital. It’s morning, which feels disorienting. He just about lost his sense of time, and he has no clue what day it is. 

Standing out in the parking lot, Mike says, “Now that I know you’re not gonna die on us, I can say— fuck you guys. You abandoned us!” 

Eddie rolls his eyes, one arm still protectively around Richie’s waist. “Water under the bridge, Mikey. And I don’t know if we’ve said this already, but fuck you! You lied to us!”

“Water under the bridge,” Mike says with a shrug and they all laugh, harder than anyone expects, but they’re all loopy from lack of sleep, and it’s a release of whatever tension remains.

Richie, still a bit dazed, is hugged in turn by Bill, Mike, Bev and Ben, echoing their goodbyes, and promising to call. Then the four pile into Mike’s car and drive off, waving out the window. Richie watches them drive away, slightly confused. “Wait, where are we—?”

Eddie pulls car keys from his pocket and a silver Honda CR-V next to them clicks unlocked. “I rented this car. You wanna drive to L.A. for real this time?”

Richie grins and makes his way to the passenger side. It’s a much more practical car, he has to admit. “You know, I was sort of serious about that documentary thing, I think that’s a good idea. My agent might not totally kill me if I come back with something.”

As they’re driving out of town, Richie stares out the window at the familiar buildings of downtown Derry, the storefronts and murals. Then he says, “Hey take a right, I wanna show you something.”

Eddie gives him skeptical look but does as he’s told, taking a turn toward the river. When he spots the kissing bridge ahead of them, Eddie groans. “You’re such a horndog, I swear. Is almost dying not enough for you?”

“Just pull over.”

In the dusty sunshine by the side of the road, it takes Richie a minute or two to find his handiwork. Then he points to the carved-in R + E, faded, but still legible. 

Eddie glances at the initials, then back to Richie. “What’s this?”

“You asked how long. I think I was thirteen when I did this. And you know. I’d felt that way for a while already. You don’t resort to vandalism for any old crush.” 

Eddie seems a little speechless, and like he might even have tears welling in his eyes. And Richie doesn’t feel totally ready for _that_ right now, so he claps his hands together and says, “Well, that’s it, let’s hit the road. Haven’t done enough driving the past few days, huh?” 

As he turns away, Eddie grabs his wrist. “You still have that pocketknife on you?” 

“Huh? Oh, yeah.” Richie retrieves it from his luggage and extends it to him. 

Eddie crouches by the wood railing, and brushes a bit of dirt from the straight-carved lines of the R. Over the past nearly three decades, a few other lovers have infringed on their spot; an overlapping J and the edge of a heart cross the E. 

“It’s kinda worn out,” Eddie comments as he begins to trace over the lines, etching them in deeper. When he's done, Eddie stands back up and holds the knife out to Richie. "Okay. Let's get out of this shithole town."

"Wait, we can't leave without—" Richie reaches for his face with his good hand and ducks his head to kiss him. Eddie kisses back, slow and tender, arms around his waist. When Richie pulls back, they stand foreheads together for a moment, aware of what was almost lost. "Okay, now we can go." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me, writing this: ugh I don’t wanna recount anything about the Pennywise fight, I hate writing action sequences and we all saw the movie. .. .oh, maybe I should … injure Richie … the POV character … so I don’t have to write anything … lol I honestly wasn’t planning on that, it was purely a lazy writing shortcut. Sorry, bud. Nothing personal.
> 
> But ah, it’s the end! This has been so fun to write, hope y’all liked the conclusion!
> 
> tumblr: @[skeilig](https://skeilig.tumblr.com)


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